Enforcement Push Coming On "Service Writers", "Service Advisors"?

Readers will recall our April 2011 newsletter and blog post regarding the U.S. Labor Department's having declined to recognize the overtime-exempt status of vehicle-dealership employees typically called "service writers", "service advisors", or "service salesmen".  In so doing, USDOL appears to have revived its previously-abandoned interpretation that the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's Section 13(b)(10)(A) does not apply to employees whose role is to diagnose the mechanical condition of or to determine service needed by a vehicle, to assign service work to employees, to monitor their progress and results, and otherwise to take responsibility for the service work.

Dealerships across the nation were understandably alarmed by the prospects that USDOL would resume challenging the exempt status of these employees for the first time in almost 24 years.  However, Congress's 2012 USDOL appropriation prohibited the agency from devoting any of its funding to such